Tales of the Knights Templar (12 page)

“Good evening, Sir Adam,” the man said from beneath the umbrella, bowing slightly as he swung the car door wider.

“Hello, Linton,” Adam replied. “You didn’t need to come out in the rain.”

The older man smiled slightly above his striped waistcoat and black coat. “Sir John told me to expect you. I prefer not to present him with soggy guests. Please come in.”

“Thank you. I have one bag in the boot.”

“I’ll see to it, sir. This way, please.”

With a gravity appropriate to a longtime retainer, the elderly butler led him through the entryway and a lofty vestibule passage, then along a dimly lit portrait gallery, pausing at length before a familiar door carved with oak leaves and acorns. Opening it softly, the man stepped inside with his back to it and announced, “Sir Adam Sinclair, Sir John.”

“Adam!” said the room’s occupant, putting aside a book and reading glasses as he rose to meet his guest.

At ninety-two, Brigadier General Sir John Graham could have passed for a man at least twenty years younger. Tall, lean, and handsome still, unbowed by age, he possessed a full head of silvered hair and a sharp hazel gaze that Adam knew missed little. He was an even more senior Adept than Adam, of a different tradition, but unquestionably in the service of the Light. Attired tonight in an open-necked white shirt with black trousers and a baggy black cardigan, he strode forward without recourse to the silver-headed walking stick lying beside his wing chair, taking Adam’s handshake with a firm grip.

“Adam, it’s wonderful to see you. Come and sit by the fire. Linton, we’ll have drinks in here before dinner.”

“Very good, Sir John.”

Over crystal tumblers of The Macallan, Adam related further details of the case that had brought him to Oakwood the previous September, along with its successful conclusion at Fyvie Castle in the distant north of Scotland. The general listened intently, interjecting the occasional probing question or succinct observation with a deftness that recalled his many years of intelligence work for the government. He had not lost his touch, and Adam found himself wondering whether ex-intelligence officers ever really retired. On his first visit to Oakwood, Sir John had even revealed a hitherto unknown working relationship with Adam’s mother during World War II—though Adam had yet to pry the story from either of them.

“So I don’t suppose we’ll ever know the identity of Gerard’s accomplice,” Adam said in conclusion. “There wasn’t enough left to identify, even before we closed up the old cellars. Other than that, and the consequences to Henri Gerard—which he brought on himself—I don’t suppose any real harm was done in the final analysis. Other than Nathan Fiennes’ death, of course. I shall miss him.”

“I expect you shall. He sounds a remarkable man,” the general said. “What about Gerard? Do you think he can be cured?”

“I don’t know. As a psychiatrist, I’d like to hope he can be returned to at least a degree of normal functioning; but from an esoteric point of view, I think it’s highly doubtful. One doesn’t often see a case where elements of a previous life come through so strongly that they almost completely overshadow the present persona. Barring some unforeseen breakthrough, I’m less than optimistic about any meaningful resolution—which is a tragic waste. I’m told he was quite a competent scholar in his field, even if single-minded to the point of obsession.”

“Unfortunate,” Graham replied. “Have you seen him since the incident?”

“Not yet—though I’ve kept tabs on his progress through the health services. We dumped him near a hospital on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Eventually, I expect I’ll be called in on the case. For now, he’s at least receiving kindness and concern. That can go a long way in cases like this.”

“True enough,” Graham agreed. “But as you said, he largely brought his fate upon himself.”

Grimacing for answer, Adam set down his empty tumbler on an occasional table between them, then reached into the inside breast pocket of his suit coat and produced a flat black jeweler’s box familiar to both of them.

“Thank you for the loan of this,” he said, handing it over.

“Not at all,” the general replied as he opened the box to expose what lay within.

The cross inside lay atop a coiled skein of silky black cord, scarlet enamel and gold against a bed of black velvet. About three inches long, it was of a shape called a cross
formée,
with arms slightly flared at the ends—one of the earlier types of cross worn by the Knights Templar during the Crusades.

This particular item, sometimes known as the Dundee Cross, had been in the hereditary keepership of Grahams since the time of another John Grahame, Viscount Dundee, known to Scottish history as Claverhouse or Clavers, Dark John of the Battles, and “Bonnie Dundee.” Tradition declared that Dundee had been grand prior of a preserved or reconstituted order of Templars in Scotland at the time of the Jacobite Wars, and that he had been wearing the cross of his rank when he fell at Killiecrankie, his greatest and last victory. As its present keeper gently set its box on the polished rosewood table, the firelight reflecting off Adam’s discarded tumbler cast a glitter of fiery sparkles across the rich enamel and gold.

“It’s quite a potent symbol, isn’t it?” Graham said.

Adam nodded distractedly, letting his gaze be ensnared amid the dazzle of cut crystal. The Templar relic beckoned to a deeply buried part of his being that he rarely chose to face—though he had resolved to do so tonight, if the redoubtable John Graham agreed.

“More potent than perhaps you realize,” Adam replied. “If you’re willing, I’m hopeful that it might provide one more useful service before I leave it totally in your keeping again.”

As he leaned forward to pluck the cross from its box, letting the silken cord dangle free as he cupped the cross in his left palm, the general carefully set down his glass and sat back with fingers steepled before him, elbows resting on the arms of his wing chair.

“What did you have in mind?” he asked.

Adam drew a careful breath.

“You’ll recall the working we did the last time I was here.”

“Of course.”

“Quite apart from the work regarding Dundee, we—touched on a past life I hadn’t encountered before. You guided me deeper into trance and helped me make the necessary connection. That was a relatively new experience; I’m usually the one who does the guiding.”

Graham inclined his head but did not speak.

“You’re very good, Gray—extremely good,” Adam said, choosing his words carefully. “I don’t think I’ve ever let anyone take me that deep, even during my psychiatric training.”

“I had remarkable teachers,” Graham said quietly. A nostalgic sadness touched his voice as he added, “Some of my best students were quite remarkable, too.”

“I ask you as a student seeking teaching, then,” Adam replied, his hand closing resolutely around the Dundee cross. “When we worked together before, you asked me whether I was aware of a past life pertinent to Dundee and that situation. I
wasn’t
aware of the one we eventually explored, but there’s another persona who’s also somewhat related to this, that I
am
aware of.” He opened his hand to display the Templar cross. “It’s part of what enabled me to claim authority as a member of the Temple when Dundee’s shade confronted me. At the time of the suppression of the Order, I was a Templar knight called Jauffre de Saint Clair, and I died at the stake.”

Graham raised an eyebrow.

“That’s all I know about him,” Adam went on, aware of Graham’s discerning gaze upon him as he gently laid the cross back on the table. “I need to find out what transpired before Jauffre met his fate—what led him to that death. I’ve been aware of a personal connection to the Templars for some time, ancestral as well as spiritual. My estate has a Templar castle that I’m restoring, and I’ve had occasional dealings with the shade of a previous Templar tenant there.

“But flashes of Jauffre’s death seem to crop up at inconvenient times, and I haven’t been able to work past it, only around it. At times, it’s been almost incapacitating.”

He found he had begun absently tracing patterns with his fingertip among the coils of the cross’s silken cord, and made himself sit back in his chair as he looked up somewhat sheepishly.

“I think you’ll understand that this isn’t the sort of thing for which I can ask help from a professional colleague,” he said with a wan smile. “I’m afraid orthodox psychiatry views past life regression as trendy at best, and certainly questionable in a reputable psychiatrist. Until I worked with you, I had about resigned myself to never quite resolving the issue.”

“Are you asking me to take you back to the time of Jauffre, so that you can work out that death?” the general asked.

“I am,” Adam said. “I’ll understand if you feel you can’t or shouldn’t, but I can think of no one I would sooner trust to do it.”

“What about Philippa?” Graham asked, referring to Adam’s mother. “Surely she’s one psychiatrist who wouldn’t scoff.”

“No, but you’re here, and she’s in the States. Besides, you have the warrior’s perspective; Philippa’s experience has been focused on priesthood and healing. They aren’t incompatible, or you and I should not be having this discussion, but I think you might bring unique insights to the exercise.”

“Very well.” The two simple words caught Adam off guard; he had expected more of an argument. “There’s time before dinner, I think. I’d already ordered something that would hold, in case your plane was delayed.”

“That’s fine,” Adam found himself saying, despite an uncharacteristic twinge of apprehension that briefly made his stomach queasy.

“So be it, then.” Graham retrieved the stick beside his chair, though he stood without using it. “Linton will show you to your room; it’s the same one you had last time. Make yourself comfortable, and I’ll join you directly. Take the cross with you. I want to get a few things and make certain we won’t be disturbed.”

A quarter hour later, Adam was ensconced in a snug, light-paneled room overlooking the entry court, trying not to think too much about what lay ahead. It was already well dark outside, rain still pelting down, and Linton had pulled the heavy drapes across the bow window. A cheery fire burned in the cut-stone fireplace, and a tiny bedside lamp provided a second source of light.

Adam removed his coat and tie and pulled on a pale blue cashmere sweater, for he knew from past experience that the faint chill not dispelled by the fire would soon turn to bone-chilling cold once he began working in trance. He had slipped off his shoes and was looking for an extra blanket when a faint tap at the door announced the arrival of his host.

“It occurred to me after I’d sent you up,” Graham said, closing the door behind him, “that we probably shouldn’t have had those drinks.” He had a heavy-looking green and blue tartan lap rug over one arm, with his stick and a gold-framed print cradled atop it. “Some people prefer not to work with alcohol in their systems. Will that be a problem?”

Adam shook his head and managed a faint smile as Graham deposited the stick just inside the door.

“Not at all. I’d regard one drink as medicinal, in a case like this. It will probably help me to relax.”

The general snorted. “I hope you don’t find
me
daunting. Anyway, I’ve brought you an old print of a Knight Templar,” he went on, handing the print to Adam. “I’m sure you’ve seen similar drawings, but I thought it might provide an additional focus.”

“Thank you.”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Adam tilted the print to the light. It was a fairly typical etching of a Templar of the time of the Crusades, with the cross of the Order tipped in in red on mantle and surcoat. As the general began shaking out the tartan over his arm, Adam set the print aside and hurriedly adjusted the bed’s pillows to his liking.

“I see you’ve anticipated another need,” he said, swinging his feet up so he could help Graham spread the rug over his feet and legs. “I was just looking for another blanket when you came in. I know how cold it can get on the Astral.”

“Here at Oakwood, we speak of going on the Second Road,” Graham replied, a faint smile quirking at his mouth as he pulled a straight-backed chair closer and sat. “You
are
nervous about this, aren’t you?”

It was more a statement than a question, and Adam had to draw a deep breath before he could bring himself to nod agreement.

“You needn’t be,” Graham said, “though I won’t pretend that it’s likely to be pleasant. You’ve already told me that Jauffre burned at the stake—and he probably was tortured to extract a confession; a great many Templars were.”

“I’m prepared for that,” Adam replied. “That was the only way the inquisitors were able to obtain so many confessions. And only those who confessed and then recanted were executed. Maybe what I have to find out is whether Jauffre kept faith with the Order. I think he must have done, knowing something of the other lives I’ve led; but I have to know.”

“Fair enough.” Graham cocked his head at him thoughtfully. “You do realize that you’re apt to find out whether at least some of the charges against the Templars were true? Mere torture and burning at the stake may not be the worst you’ll have to deal with, at least in psychological terms.”

“I’ve thought about that possibility.”

Graham smiled faintly. “I expect you have. Lie back, then, and we’ll get started. I’ll do my best to make the process as painless as possible.”

Though reason gave Adam no cause to doubt his host’s reassurance, apprehension stirred less biddable emotion as he lay back and set about relaxing, drawing a deep breath and exhaling slowly. He had put on the ring of his Adeptship while he waited for the general to join him, symbol of office borne and oaths freely given elsewhere; its sapphire caught the firelight as he tucked the tartan rug more closely around his waist and chest—visual reassurance that he was not going into this totally unprepared.

Close beside him, Graham set a tiny pocket tape recorder on the nightstand and turned it on, then picked up the Templar cross Adam had laid there earlier and slipped it into a jacket pocket with the cord trailing outside. From deeper in the pocket he produced a bright red disposable lighter.